Figure - PMC

Skip to main content

An official website of the United States government

Here's how you know

Here's how you know

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

View full-text article in PMC

. 2021 May 27;7:46. doi: 10.1038/s41531-021-00190-x

Search in PMC
Search in PubMed
View in NLM Catalog
Add to search

© The Author(s) 2021

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

PMC Copyright notice

Fig. 5 — The pathway of direct stimulation of brain regions. 1&2, Dorsal motor nucleus of the vagus and nucleus tractus solitarius; 3, Locus coeruleus; 4&5, Basal ganglia and thalamus; 6, forebrain cholinergic nucleus (including nucleus basalis of Meynert). B inflammatory reflex through vagus nerve showing the efferent limb. Vagus nerve stimulation leads to secretion of ACh in the celiac ganglion. ACh in turn stimulates the splenic nerve, which provides direct adrenergic innervation to the spleen. [Ach = Acetyl Choline; NE = Norepinephrine/Noradrenaline]. C The cellular and molecular environment inside the spleen. NE secreted by splenic nerve stimulates T cells (cholinesterase positive to secrete Ach). The secreted neurotransmitter binds with the 7-α subunit of nicotinic ACh receptors on the surface of macrophages and inhibits secretion of TNF-α.